Road Trip
by Balanced
Summary: I think you should drive us back to Princeton, House said.


**Author's Note:** Grr. So, the absolute last thing I need is _another_ multi-chapter fic, but this one is only going to be two or three chapters. I wanted to make it a long-ass oneshot, but I'm getting off pretty soon, and I'm still not done typing it up, so I decided to break it up. And plus, it'll probably be another two days before I'll have internet at my disposal again, so I don't want to have this hanging over my head.  
><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> I wish I owned House but I don't. And while a lot of the places in this story are real I haven't been to many of them.

_**Wilson:** I'm coming back because you're right. That strange, annoying trip we just took was the most fun I've had since Amber died._

"I've decided that you should drive us back to Princeton," House said. It was Sunday morning, and checkout was in a half hour. He stood in his new friend's room, making a conscious effort to swallow back comments about Wilson's clothing choices (but really, why did he think he'd need ten ties for a three-day conference?) while the younger man double checked the contents of his luggage.

Wilson glanced at him over his shoulder, then turned back to his suitcase muttering, "Socks, check."

"Hello." House reached forward and poked him sharply on the shoulder blade. "Not kidding over here."

"Ow! Dammit, House. You do realize that my flight is in an hour?"

"But, Jimmy." House stuck out his lower lip and cocked his head to the side. "We only just met. Are you really prepared to part ways? Test our friendship, so new, so fragile."

Wilson snorted. "Right. The first word I think of when I think of you is _fragile._" There was a moment of silence as he narrowed his eyes and inspected the space; then, with a slight frown at the man he was starting to think of as his "friend" - for lack of a better term, anyway - he crossed the room and snatched the brown manila folder that contained his most recent failure from House's bag.

The diagnostician shrugged, as though stealing Wilson's divorce papers was mundane, almost expected. "How am I supposed to tell you if you got a good deal if you won't even let me look at them?"

"Don't say 'good deal.' We're talking about a marriage, not BOGO yogurt."

"Mr. Sensitive. Anyway, so you were about to tell me that you'd love to take a road trip with me."

"House, it's . . ." Wilson's forehead wrinkled in concentration and House focused on the many reasons he couldn't tear the younger man's shirt off and have his very dirty, if satisfying, way with him. "It's over 1200 miles. It'd take us, like, four days to get back to New Jersey."

Inwardly, House brightened. He hadn't really considered the possibility that he would be able to convince Wilson to forgo the flight, but if that was the best argument that the oncologist-to-be had in him, well then this would be a piece of cake.

"Oh please," House scoffed. "Twenty hours. We could knock that out in two days, if we were committed."

"Which we would probably be, after spending that much time together."

"Oh, you're just too funny."

"Honestly, House, we just met. And it's not as if your reputation is all puppies and rainbows."

"Well neither is yours, now. At least I haven't destroyed any private property." Off Wilson's raised eyebrow he added, "Well, in your presence, anyway."

"Great. I feel loads better." But then Wilson glanced at him and House saw the man that he'd bailed out jail, that he'd spent two days in a drunken haze with. The smallest of smiles played across the thin lips and House chose to stare up at the ceiling instead of acting out what kept crossing his mind.

"Well, where would we get a car," Wilson asked, a little shyly.

House felt a rush of excitement and something else as he found himself eying the smooth, youthful features of the person who had fallen so effortlessly into his proverbial lap. Somehow he had never realized how imperfect everyone else he had ever known was. He'd seen their faults, obviously, but with this brand new yard stick against which to measure others, all previous relationships seemed forced and ugly.

"Too bad there isn't, like, someone sitting at the desk in the front that would be willing to give you the number for a car rental place."

"So call 'em."

"Where's your wallet?"

~~~

_"This_ is what you ordered," Wilson demanded twenty minutes later. _"This_ is what you _ordered_?"

House and Wilson were now standing out front of the hotel, neither able to take their eyes off the automobile that was parked by the revolving door. Wilson had been expecting an SUV maybe, or, depending on the severity of House's eccentricities, a Lincoln Town Car. Not, by any stretch of the imagination, the Volkswagen Beetle, that wouldn't hold their _bags_ comfortably, let alone their bodies.

A _pink_ Volkswagen Beetle, to be specific.

"I don't see anything wrong," House eventually replied, and Wilson had to look at him to see if there was sarcasm behind the light blue eyes (and there was sarcasm, yes, and then this other slightly glinting thing that made his stomach roll over, and heart rise into his throat).

"I'm not driving a pink car," Wilson said when he found his voice. "Where'd that employee go? He's got to take this one back and get us something else."

"He already left. And there wasn't anything else. Were you not standing there while I called four different places? Every damn place is empty because of this stupid conference."

"House-"

"It's already paid for."

"I don't care. There are limits."

"Not if you want to be friends with me." House leaned forward, resting his elbows on the top of the car (choosing not to think about how sad it was that they even reached) and then shot Wilson an appraising look. "So what's it going to be, Jimmy? Boredom and predictability? Or-" He made a sweeping gesture with his arm, "Excitement and new experiences?"

As if Wilson had a decision to actually make. The moment the words _new experiences_ had met his ears he'd been sold. Especially since they'd been uttered by the most attractive pair of lips he had ever seen. He sighed. "Well, let's get this show on the road, then, because if I think about it much longer I'll probably change my mind."

And as they threw their bags into the back, and House passed Wilson the keys, the diagnostician said, too quietly for Wilson to hear, "You could try."

~~~

Once they were in the car, and Wilson had put miles between the two of them and the hotel, the mood in the car got significantly lighter. House wasn't sure if it was the drive itself, or the radio playing everything _but_ Billy Joel, but this relaxed, smiling man navigating the car through traffic was slightly more fun to be around.

"So," House began, "you're stranded on a desert island. And you can bring three-"

"Items," Wilson interrupted skeptically. "I thought you were a little more creative than that."

"Actually, I was going to say, 'hookers' but if you want, we can use your word instead."

Wilson smirked in spite of himself, and lowered his head, accepting the fact that he had lost that exchange. He opened his mouth to give his answer (though which, he couldn't be sure), but before he could, a loud, ominous _pop_ exploded beneath them.

The steering wheel jerked away from his too-lose hands, and the car was suddenly flying off the road, onto the shoulder. Wilson slammed on the breaks, and the car did stop, but it was several seconds before either man could trust their voice. Wilson, still panting with undiluted fear, brushed away the tears that had formed in the corners of his eyes, then took a shaky deep breath.

"What the fuck was that," House gasped.

"A tire," Wilson moaned, because he had been sure that was what it was from the moment he'd heard the noise. "Please let there be a spare, please let there be a spare, please let there . . ." As his words stopped being actual words, so much as nonsensical mutterings, Wilson climbed out of the car, and walked around the back to inspect the damage. And sure enough, the back right tire was shredded beyond all recognition.

Letting out a gust of air in frustration, he popped the trunk, and for a moment, felt a surge of relief.

Until he pulled the spare out, and examined it.

"House," he called to the passenger seat, where his friend was watching the show with an expression somewhere between amusement, and full out enjoyment.

"I think you've got this under control," came the blunt, gruff voice.

"House," and this time it was said with a slight . . . well, if not whine, then plea. "House. There's no jack."

"No jack," House repeated, extricating himself from the car. "No _jack_? We are so going to sue the hell out of those bastards."

"Helpful," Wilson muttered. He stepped back, as though the missing part was suddenly going to materialize if he gave the car enough space, then sighed again. Frankly, Wilson hated hated _hated_ situations like these. He'd never exactly been one for going with the flow, and if he'd been called overly cautious, or paranoid a time or two in his life it just meant that he was doing something right. So he retrieved the map from the backseat and gave it a quick inspection.

"Well, we're right outside of Laurel," he said, glancing at House to see his reaction.

"That would be Laurel, Mississippi," House questioned. When Wilson nodded, he released a loud sigh. "Fine, whatever. But we get a car as soon as possible, okay? Because I'm not trying to hang around and pick cotton all weekend."

Wilson couldn't help rolling his eyes. "Stereotyping at its finest."

"How do you think they become stereotypes to begin with?"

An hour later House and Wilson had called a cab to rescue from the side of the interstate, called Enterprise to let them know they had left the car right there (House had insisted on making the call, and, considering House's side of things, Wilson had been rather glad that he wasn't the employee on the other end of the line), and were now seated inside some hole in the wall restaurant, nursing drinks while going back and forth over their options.

"There's an Enterprise here," Wilson reminded House before taking another swig of beer.

"And we were on the road for barely two hours before their car nearly got us killed."

"A bit of an exaggeration."

As House opened his mouth to give his reply, commotion erupted from behind, and he instinctively turned to observe. Three tables over, a group had crowded around one section of the room, and though House couldn't see through the throng of people, something made him stand, and quickly stride over.

"Let me through," he snapped, angrily elbowing a young woman in a yellow tee shirt. Despite the loud voices, he still heard Wilson murmuring apologizes to those he left in his wake.

When he and Wilson finally reached the center of the circle, they were able to see object of interest.

A small, middle-aged woman, with curly grey hair, and glasses so thick she resembled a bug, was bent worriedly over a man that was evidently her husband, judging by his age and appearance. Well, and the fact that she was yelling, "Someone help my husband; someone please. My husband."

Wilson gently moved her away, and crouched down as well, reaching over to check the pulse. "Heart attack," he told House, before beginning compressions. He began counting loudly to himself.

"One, two, three, four, five . . ."

House turned to a member of the restaurant staff. "Call 911," he instructed, and to his relief the girl quickly turned around and headed for the phone by the bar. When Wilson reached thirty he paused, and looked up to House to see if he was going to do the breaths.

"Oh, you've got this," House answered his unasked question. He'd noticed the copious amounts of coffee the man had been drinking earlier, and the two cigarettes he'd stepped outside for. And Wilson was just out of med school. It would do him good to have a real-life experience.

Actually, House was doing him a favor.

It was mere seconds later that the sound of sirens reached the ears of all in the restaurant. The paramedics ran through the glass doors, their long forms practically a blur as they relieved Wilson and put the patient on a stretcher.

"He's going to be fine," one of the medics told the wife. Then he nodded to Wilson. "Honestly, he probably saved his life."

House tried not to roll his eyes, but when the wife grasped Wilson's hands in gratitude, he lost the battle.

"My husband's the mayor of this small town," she told him through her tears. "And I heard you and your partner before-" Here House and Wilson looked up at the same moment, but didn't interject, "Talking about breaking down on 59." She reached into her purse and fished out a set of keys. "Mine's the black BMW parked out front."

She tried to pass the keyring to Wilson, who quickly held up his hands. "You can't give me your car," he said in amazement.

"Nonsense. We have two others almost exactly like it. You saved my husband." She gave up on Wilson, and held them out to House, who put up no argument. "It's the least I can do."

And with those final words, she hurriedly followed the paramedics out the door.

For a moment they chose to remain stationary as the people began to thin out around them. It was House who finally moved and held the keyring up to eye-level.

"Well," he said slowly, "I guess we can hit the road."

~~~

Greg House didn't consider himself to be an easily-impressed kind of guy, but even he couldn't stop his eyebrows from twitching just a tad when they got into the car. He wouldn't have thought that being a mayor of a small town would yield the kind of paycheck that this vehicle would require for ownership, but he also wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. As Wilson turned the key in the ignition, House let his eyes close before leaning back against the leather seats.

They drove for miles and miles, minutes drifting into hours. House fell asleep about ten miles inside of Alabama, and though Wilson considered waking him out of spite, he rejected the idea almost as quickly as it came to him. Somehow the soft sound of House's rhythmic breathing was soothing, and it was what kept him from turning on the radio.

Once they entered Tennessee, Wilson decided to make a pit stop for gas. The first gas station was barely three miles inside the state, and when he pulled up to the first pump at Exxon, he reached over to shake his friend awake.

As the blue eyes of the diagnostician fluttered open and instantly locked with his own brown, he felt his heart swoop low in his stomach.

"We stopped," he said, then he felt himself blush when he realized that that was a little obvious. "Did you want to get something to eat? Or something? Or pee? If you need to pee . . ." His voice trailed away, the mixture of intrigue and amusement on House's face freezing his voice in his throat.

"I'm good," House answered after a beat. "Where are we?" The sun had evidently set quite a while before, as the sky was now dark and dotted with stars.

"We just got to Tennessee. I was going to ask you if you could call somewhere in Knoxville and get us a room."

House smirked, and let his eyes slide noticeably along the length of Wilson's body. "I'll just bet you did," he teased, and of course, Wilson was quite sure he was kidding. Because it would be such a "this is not possible" thing for House to hold his gaze like that, to look at him like that, and _not_ be kidding.

"I'm going to go pay," Wilson said, and exited the car.

Once Wilson had disappeared into the convenience store House found himself full-out grinning. This trip with his new friend was turning out to be far more interesting than he'd previously envisioned, than he _could_ have envisioned. He was certain he hadn't imagined the strange tension in the air a moment before, and even then he'd been tempted just to try it, to lean forward and catch Wilson's bottom lip between his teeth and give it a very gentle tug.

But for some reason, though, he had let the opportunity pass. Well, if he was honest with himself, he could guess why. He was finding himself increasingly . . . attached to Wilson. Suddenly he was seeing visions of monster truck rallies, viewings of Vertigo, and dinners, with someone else there. He could see laughter, and someone to bitch to when someone parked in his space at work.

It was something new for him, something he'd never expected for himself. And could he risk it, just so that he could taste that other man's skin?

_No,_ he thought, deciding that he was rather a wise soul. _No, I can't. Better just to let the chips fall where they may._ But as he reached for his cell phone and dialed 411 he found himself thinking, _But maybe I'll just give it a little push. Just in case._


End file.
